Up until about a year ago, we worked with the Irish community here in Phoenix all year round. When it got to St Pattys day, we worked the parade, came home and had a party here, with all the neighbors. Neither one of us had any desire to be out at the bars, seeing the same people we saw all year long, listening to the same music, on what was considered 'amateur night'...lolDon't know what we are doing this year

I think Mike (Pumpkin Man) usually has a family celebration, as that is his heritage.

My husband considers himself German (though he is really only half-German), and I don't think he has any Irish ancestry at all. I have a little, thrown in there with a ton of other ethnicities. I started trying to "keep" St. Patrick's Day several years ago by making an Irish-themed meal for my family, but they aren't crazy about the food. They do seem to like the soda bread I make (although the recipe I have calls for sugar, and I believe I've read that the most traditional type isn't sweet). I love corned beef & cabbage, but my family does not. However, I have learned that this is really an American Irish meal, learned from their proximity to the Jewish sectors in the big cities (corned beef is a Jewish thing), so last year I tried an Irish stew. Had to use beef, though, as lamb is very hard to come by in the American South. It was good, but my husband has never liked stew.

Lots of the Irish recipes I find use root vegetables, which I happen to love, but my husband does not. Traditional Southern cooking uses lots of turnips and stuff like that, and so do the Irish. I also never met cabbage in any form that I didn't love, but my husband does not share my enthusiasm for it.

I suspect that whatever Irish ancestry I have is most likely from the Protestant side, i.e., more Scotch-Irish than Irish. My mother's family has lots of redheads, but I have always heard that her dad's people were mainly Scotch-Irish & Welsh. One of my sons is a redhead, or a "ginger," as he likes to call himself.

I have never lived in a city that had a St. Patrick's Day parade.

I'd say that my family does have some slight connection to Ireland through me, but we have none at all to Mexico. Yet it is easier for me to get them to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, since they all love Mexican food!

Husband is half Irish, half German as he says (he always forgets the little itty bit of Russian thrown in)We usually do traditional corned beef, cabbage, irish soda bread. I really do like the meal, so I guess we'll just have it for dinner on the 17th

I'm Irish and I have to say, corned beef was a learned dish. Jewish immigrants in America taught their Irish neighbors how to make it. Fun little fact.

With your screen name, is Johnson your maiden name? My last name is Johnson and the Johnson's have a pretty funny history. They were kicked out of England for being too violent in the 1400's-1500's. They immigrated to Ireland and were soon hired by the clan McShane (Mc in Gaelic means Son of, and Shane is Gaelic for John) to eradicate their rivals. The Johnsons took up the task and as a reward were married into the Clan McShane and given land.

We don't do anything big, but I dress my daughter in green and try to wear something green myself. And I make the corned beef and cabbage as well. I have a splash of Irish blood in me on my mother's side, along with German and Native American!

I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion. ~Henry David Thoreau

Oh, yes, I try to make sure everyone has something green. It's an easier sell to my daughter than to my husband. Second son wears green obligingly but probably wouldn't think of it if I didn't prod him. (First son is off on his own now, wears whatever he pleases whenever he pleases. But he loves Ireland--Yeats is a second Bible to him, and he made a pilgrimage to Yeats country as well as Dublin when he lived abroad in Germany his jr year. So he is very pro-Irish.)

How do I celebrate? Hahaha. Well, I usually start with a steak, cabbage, and potato dish of some sort. Then my wife and I get together with our friends. The girls usually stick to their mixed drinks and the fellas have a few bottles of Jameson's while we sit around and laugh, tell tales, and sing songs like this:

My kids grew up with us being so involved with the Irish out here, that if we DON't do something for St Pattys, they used to get upset. They knew all the words to all the Irish folk songs, etc. They are grown up now 17/19/21/23...so they no longer care..hahaha

The johnson part of my handle is another married last name. I'm actually Hungarian/German, and think there is a little tiny bit of Irish somewhere there.

Speaking of St Pattys, I received an evite from someone for a party. This person emailed about 200 people, and my husband and I have no idea where we know this person from. The name sounds familiar, the location looks kinda familiar (its a home), and there is a mention on this persons facebook of being heavily engaged in Halloween. Here in Phoenix.

The first name is David...does this ring a bell with anyone here? Its driving me crazy! I don't know that I've met any of you from this board locally before.

Murfreesboro wrote:I think Mike (Pumpkin Man) usually has a family celebration, as that is his heritage.

My husband considers himself German (though he is really only half-German), and I don't think he has any Irish ancestry at all. I have a little, thrown in there with a ton of other ethnicities. I started trying to "keep" St. Patrick's Day several years ago by making an Irish-themed meal for my family, but they aren't crazy about the food. They do seem to like the soda bread I make (although the recipe I have calls for sugar, and I believe I've read that the most traditional type isn't sweet). I love corned beef & cabbage, but my family does not. However, I have learned that this is really an American Irish meal, learned from their proximity to the Jewish sectors in the big cities (corned beef is a Jewish thing), so last year I tried an Irish stew. Had to use beef, though, as lamb is very hard to come by in the American South. It was good, but my husband has never liked stew.

Lots of the Irish recipes I find use root vegetables, which I happen to love, but my husband does not. Traditional Southern cooking uses lots of turnips and stuff like that, and so do the Irish. I also never met cabbage in any form that I didn't love, but my husband does not share my enthusiasm for it.

I suspect that whatever Irish ancestry I have is most likely from the Protestant side, i.e., more Scotch-Irish than Irish. My mother's family has lots of redheads, but I have always heard that her dad's people were mainly Scotch-Irish & Welsh. One of my sons is a redhead, or a "ginger," as he likes to call himself.

I have never lived in a city that had a St. Patrick's Day parade.

I'd say that my family does have some slight connection to Ireland through me, but we have none at all to Mexico. Yet it is easier for me to get them to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, since they all love Mexican food!

Here, here Murf. I don't have any Mexican heritage in me either but I damn sure do the Cinco de Mayo celebrating! Every week though, might as well be Cinco de Mayo for me. Being from Texas, you just kinda grow up with that food and really you can't throw a rock without hitting a Mexican food place. I like to say that it's the native food of my people. I think Mexican food for a lot of Texans is like air for everyone else. It's just a necessity for survival

It being on a Saturday this year, my friends and I are going to do a trolley crawl and hit up as many Irish bars between downtown and east county as we can. Preferably ones within staggering distance of the trolley stops. I should be working on mapping them out right now, actually. We'll probably keep going till the bars close, we pass out, or we get kicked off the train. Probably all three... in that order.

I don't think I would ever have thought of up-ending the can directly inside the glass!

Pumpkin, I am very familiar with Texas. My husband and I lived in Killeen for the first 3 1/2 years of our marriage (in fact, we honeymooned in San Antonio). I also have relatives in Austin, so I have made trips there throughout my life, at irregular intervals. And my mother had an aunt in El Paso, so my first trip to Texas was made to that distant out-post.

What surprised me, after moving from TX to GA and then VA before returning to TN, was how many Hispanics have settled here in Middle Tennessee. That was not true when I lived here the first time, during the 70s. Nashville now has one area, south of town, that even has all the signs in Spanish. And you probably couldn't go a block here in Murfreesboro without seeing a Mexican eatery of some sort.